Heart of Glass, Eyes of Stone
by Kiss me - Love Kate
Summary: Kelsey has been on her own since she was seven. But that was no mistake, Gaea has prepared her to be a challenge for Camp Half-Blood, one that they might not be able to beat...Ya, I suck at summaries, I'm not sure that even made sense...Ah, well.
1. Chapter 1

Every Story has a Beginning

A little girl, seven years old, sat in her room, curled in the corner. She could hear shouts from the kitchen, something glass shattered, and something fell with a thud to the floor. She could hear her mother's sobs and her step father's angry shouts. This happened every day, the fighting, and her step father always found something to shout about. He loved to shout and throw things. This was bad, but the worst was when her mother didn't come home until very late, then her step father had to find someone else to shout at and it was always her. He hit her when she didn't do just as he said, her tiny body slamming against the wall. Big bruises in the shape of handprints formed on her body. Her mother never had time to comfort her, she was too busy working. He constantly drank from glass bottles that smelled like death, they made her head hurt.

Suddenly there was an eerie silence, the shouting had stopped. The little girl ventured to the kitchen to find her mother lying alone on the floor, barely breathing. The little girl ran from the apartment sobbing. She looked back once she was outside. I will never, she promised herself, ever come back.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I do not own PJO, Rick Riordan does :(**

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Eight Years Ago

She crouched behind a tree, just out of the circle of light created by the campfire. Her thick chocolate brown hair fell in wild waves down her back, she studied the group with eyes the color of thick dark honey. There was a boy with blonde hair, he looked about fourteen. There was a girl with choppy black hair and freckles, she looked around sixteen. Lying between the two was a girl with long blonde hair, she looked around seven. They slept peacefully by the fire, not knowing they were being watched. She quietly slipped from behind the tree she crouched by their bags and went through their supplies, looking for food. She pulled out a few granola bars and an apple. She stood to go when a hand reached out and grabbed her wrist, she yelped. It was the boy, he was awake, he said something to his friends and they woke up with a start. The rest was a blur, they said that they were like her; they were chased by monsters too. They said they would protect her. She trusted them. All she knew was that the next morning, the kids were gone, all that as left were the ashes from the campfire, they had left her.


	3. Chapter 3

**I don't own PJO (ha, that rhymes)**

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Poor Policeman

Annabeth, Percy, and Thalia sat quietly outside a small café. They had been waiting there for hours. Chiron had sent them, saying they would know what they were looking for when they saw it. So they sat in the warm sun, outside the café, at table 36, just as Chiron had said. Annabeth slowly ran her fingers around the brim of her cup, Thalia played with a blue streak in her hair. Thalia suddenly perked up, "Annabeth, do you recognize her?" Annabeth followed Thalia's gaze to a girl being walked towards a police car. The police held her hands tightly behind her back; he walked slowly, as if his feet were sticking to the ground. The girl walked normally, seeming exasperated by the speed he was walking at. She had long chocolate brown hair that fell in wild waves halfway down her back. Her eyes were large and the color of honey, they were cold and hard, you didn't forget eyes like that. A memory stirred in the back of Annabeth's mind. They had been sleeping in a park, far away from where people could find them. She had woken up when Luke told Thalia that he had found a little girl, she had been trying to steal their food. After talking to the girl for a while, they had realized that she was a halfblood too, after much talking, they convinced her to stay with them. The next morning when they woke up, they were halfway around the country with no idea of how they had gotten there, and on top of that, the little girl was gone.

"It couldn't be her." said Annabeth firmly, "There is no way she could have survived that long."

"You never know" said Thalia doubtfully.

"What?" asked Percy, obviously confused.

"I think she's the one Chiron sent us here to find" Annabeth said, looking at Thalia. She didn't look at her so she looked back at the girl and the policeman. They had finally made it to the police car; the policeman was struggling and sweating. He opened the door and motioned for the girl to get in. Instead of doing what most people would do, which is duck their head and get in the car, the girl spun around and kicked the policeman so hard in the stomach he flew back a few feet, the she took off running down the street.

"And this is the part where we follow" said Thalia as she stood up.

**Annabeth's POV**

The three of us chased her down the street _(What was her name? Katie? Keiki maybe? Yeah, as in cake-y. She told us to call her Keiki, since cake was her favorite food)_, dodging people on the sidewalk and trying not to knock over little kids. She ran inhumanly fast, so fast that we had to follow the sound of her distant footsteps so we didn't lose her. She finally veered off into an alley, making it easier to follow her. After a while I started to realize that I couldn't hear her footsteps anymore, something was wrong. I was about to tell Thalia and Percy that we had to stop when I rounded a sharp turn and felt a cold blade against my throat. I froze; I felt Thalia and Percy do the same behind me. The girl, Keiki, was lightly pressing a knife against my throat, she had a small smile on her lips but her eyes were completely emotionless.

"Three teenage kids aren't exactly stealth machines" she told us matter-of-factly.


	4. Chapter 4

**_"Everybody stands as she goes by. 'Cause they can see the flame that's in her eyes. Watch her as she's lighting up the night. Nobody knows that she's a lonely girl. And it's a lonely world. But she gon' let it burn, baby, burn, baby."- Girl On Fire, Alicia Keys_**

* * *

_The girl, Keiki, was lightly pressing a knife against my throat, she had a small smile on her lips but her eyes were completely emotionless._

_"Three teenage kids aren't exactly stealth machines" she told us matter-of-factly. _

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Shrimp, Willet, and Baby Blue

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Percy reaching for Riptide in his pocket. "Move another inch and your girlfriend loses her head" growled Keiki. Percy froze, looking confused, I was too, there was no way she could have known that me and Percy were going out, funny how that bothered me more than the act that she was holding a knife against my throat. "Lucky guess" Keiki said, as if she was reading my mind. Something told me that there had been no guess in what she had just said. I was even surer of that when she continued to disarm us, taking my dagger, Percy's pen and Thalia's bracelet. There was no way she could have known a pen and a bracelet were dangerous. She laid out all our weapons and sighed wearily. She pulled them into her lap and sat down, leaning against one of the walls in the alley. I gently rubbed the spot where her knife had been just a few moments ago, Percy stood next to me protectively, Thalia stood on the other side of me. There was an awkward silence Keiki sighed, her face looked tired, but her eyes stayed cold and hard, like chunks of stone. "What do you guys want?" she asked looking at our weapons. I looked at Percy; she said it so bluntly, as if she was expecting the worst.

"Are you guys demigods?"

"What?!"

"De-mi-gods, demigods"

"Um well yeah, how do you know about demigods?"

"No idea, all I know is that I'm one too"

"Who's your godly parent?"

"Buddha"

*Choke*

"What?!"

"Just kidding, I don't know"

"You don't remember us?" asked Thalia after a pause.

"Nerp" said Keiki.

"Oh" there was an awkward silence as Thalia studied Keiki who started to hum the birthday song (does that song even have a name?).

"'Course you don't" Thalia said, looking at Keiki strangely. One thing was for sure, Keiki was a weird one.

"We met you when you were about seven, you told us to call you Keiki because your favorite food was cake" I explained to Keiki.

"Cake? I don't even know when was the last time I had cake…" Keiki mumbled, looking confused. Percy sat down next to her, "Don't worry about it, the important thing is that we're here now and that we're going to take you to a place where you'll be safe." Keiki looked at him for a bit, then wrinkled her nose, "Where are we goin' Shrimp?"

"Shrimp?" asked Percy, offended.

"You smell of the ocean", she said ocean the same way you would say _dead cat that's been sitting in a pile of trash in the hot sun all day. _Just to clear things up for anybody who might think that actually smells decent (I don't know, there are some pretty weird people out there), in other words, she said it like it was something utterly repulsive. Percy opened his mouth to protest but Thalia gave him a look that clearly said _shut up_, "Camp Half-Blood, the only safe place for demigods like us. It's in Long Island. But no one ever notices it because it's protected by magical borders called Mist, which are reinforced by the Golden Fleece. The Golden Fleece is protected by a dragon." I don't know why I said it; the information just sort of flowed out. Keiki just sat and watched us for a while, like she was deciding whether we were crazy or not. She sighed, closing her eyes and running her hands through her hair, "Fine Willet, I'll go" she sighed, Willet? "Even though I'm sure ill regret it". Regret it? One question at a time, "Willet?"

"Willets eat shrimp" she answered with a devilish grin. I felt the heat rise into my cheeks. I didn't know exactly what she meant, but it didn't sound PG.

:::{)i(}:::

Keiki's POV

A white van took us to the camp. Nobody seemed to understand the strangeness in that. I mean c'mon a _white van. _Even saying white van makes most people suspicious. But the kids didn't seem to realize. They were pretty clueless, they only realized I was homeless when I told them I had to leave behind my last possession in Texas, even after I left without saying goodbye to anyone and without bringing anything. Something about the kids was weird, it made me nervous… I really missed Baby Blue.

If you asked me why I had decided to go to a camp in Long Island with three complete strangers I would have no answer. I truly didn't know, but something about the whole situation was so… déjà vu. Dragons, Golden Fleece, demigods, magical borders, Mist, it was all so familiar. It was like seeing a movie and you're positive you've seen the actor somewhere but you just can't remember where. Stuff like that probably didn't happen to most people, but then again, I wasn't like most people. It was funny to see these three kids next to me, thinking they had found someone else that was just like them, as I said earlier, so clueless. I would never be like them, or anyone else for that matter I would always be different always alone, and outcast, I didn't fit in no matter where you shoved me. I learned to deal with it, I even learned to use it to my advantage, but it would always be hard to See, it reminded me of what I would never have. It was especially painful to Look at them, the ties between them were so strong. Especially Shrimp and Willet, I swear I have never seen so much pink in my life, the tendrils thick and tightly wound as old tree roots, forming a connection that would take something much stronger than an axe to sever. Well thank you Shakespeare, for that informative description of the tree roots of love.

I sat with my head against the window or the rest of the car drive, I couldn't bear much more of Shrillets' (you know you like the name, at least it's better than Wimp) bright pinkness. It started to rain. I sat separate, my forehead against the cold glass as the kids talked to each other in whispers, I'm sure I heard them laugh once or twice. For some reason it made my empty stomach ache, _Stop it,_ I told myself, you're used to this, you're used to being the outcast, alone. A place as damn big as the world could get lonely real easy.

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**Gosh, sorry this took 1000 years to write, ive been... so ummm busyyy... :/ eep**


	5. Chapter 5

_I looked back at the apartment. The walls had peeling grey paint and random rusted metal bars sticking out of the wall. There was a ramp that started on the sidewalk and led up to nothing. It dropped off three feet from the ground; there was no door at the end of it. No lights were on in any of the apartments, giving it an empty, abandoned look._

_"We have to go" said a voice I found strangely familiar. I looked to my right and saw… myself. An exact replica of me, brown hair, honey eyes, prominent collar bone, about seven years old. I, no, she held her hand out to me. I took it, it was surprisingly solid. Then she started to run, pulling me along behind her. As she ran I watched her age, her hair grew out and she grew taller and lost all her baby fat, her clothes changed and her footsteps become faster. Watching her gave me a strange sense of melancholy. "Keiki keep up!" she kept shouting as we ran, but the whole time I was right behind her. Finally she stopped and spun around, looking me right in the eye, "Kelsey you have to run". Then the whole image started to dissolve, fading away to nothingness. The last thing I noticed before she disappeared were her eyes, wide with worry and panic, fear laced in her honey irises._

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Déjà Vu

I woke up when the van stopped. Something about the dream was so déjà vu; then again, almost everything that happened to me came along with darling déjà vu. Maybe that's why I had ridden in a _van_ with a bunch of _strangers_ to a unanimous camp where I could get _killed_ or _hurt_ (god knows what kind of camp it was), maybe it was the sense of déjà vu, or maybe I was past caring. I looked at my reflection in the window, my wavy brown hair, lightly tanned skin, small nose, honey eyes, cold, hard eyes, no emotion whatsoever. The girl in my dream had been me; every bit of us was the same, except for the eyes. Those weren't my eyes.

I stepped out of the van and looked around. Directly in front of me was a steep hill topped with a pine tree. I followed the kids up the hill. Looking around, taking everything in, memorizing. I found the whole place so…bland, everything perfect, bright hues, lots of plants. So I opened my Eyes and Looked around. Nothing was ever bland when I Looked. I was suddenly assaulted by an avalanche of color, the feelings were so strong they filled me, I couldn't think. It was like a solid mass that filled me and like a balloon, I was going to pop. I couldn't stop them, I tried to shut my Eyes but I couldn't, there were so many emotions and connections. They seemed to fill me up; I fell to my knees hard and held my head. I wrapped my arms around my head, trying to keep it from exploding. My mouth was open in a silent scream and my whole body was shaking. It hurt _so bad_, like a migraine multiplied by one hundred. I tightened my arms and rested my head on the ground, anything to keep from losing my head. Suddenly something I my mind snapped, loud and sharp. Everything froze; the colors and emotions stopped and then slowly started to fade. _Oh, thank you. _I don't think I had ever been so happy to slip out of consciousness.

Thalia POV

Wanna have some freaky experiences? Just spend a day with Keiki. First, she ran from the cops at inhuman speed. Second, she gave Percy and Annabeth weird nicknames that made no sense. Third, she agreed to go to camp with us without asking any questions. Fourth, she had a freak attack when were walking up Half Blood Hill. She just collapsed, holding her head, her mouth open in a silent scream. Then she started to shake, like her own-personal-earthquake shakes. Percy, Annabeth, and I freaked, running to get the Apollo kids and Chiron, there was something seriously scary about what happened to Keiki. Everyone came running, wondering what could have made us freak out so bad. When we got back she was unconscious, lying on her back, one arm across her stomach, the other by her face. Everyone just stopped and stared, it almost made me wish she was still freaking out so they could tell we hadn't overreacted.


End file.
